We are proud and pleased to be working with two of our favorite and two of the most legitimate Afrobeat teachers of our time, Tony Allen and Rich Medina! He is one of our favorite people on planet earth and one of the greatest drummers of all time! In addition, Rich Medina is one of the best djs on planet earth today and father of the infamous Jump n Funk parties in NYC!

Fela Kuti, his message and the music he is credited for, means a lot to us. We don't take his heritage in vein and aim to present a very serious homage to his greatness and the impact he has forever left on music lovers around the world.

1015 Folsom is proud to invite you over on July 19 to light the roof of the club on Afrobeat Fire!

Born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1940, of mixed Nigerian and Ghanaian parentage, Tony Allen taught himself to play by listening to records made by the American jazz drummers Art Blakey and Max Roach. He began working as a professional musician in 1960, gigging around Lagos and variously playing highlife and jazz. Today living in Paris, Allen has long been acknowledged as Africa's finest kit drummer and one of it's most influential musicians, the man who with Fela Anikulapo Kuti created Afrobeat - the hard driving, James Brown funk-infused, and politically engaged style which became such a dominant force in African music and whose influence continues to spread today.Allen had to overcome strong parental opposition to realise his dream of becoming a professional musician. "My parents were...not keen. Back then, in Lagos, musicians were more or less thought of as beggars, or worse. But I just put it in front of them. I was an electrical technician, but I wanted to make a change. My mother was never happy about it, but my father, who was an amateur musician, eventually agreed."

Allen started out as a jazz drummer. "Art Blakey was my big influence, and before that, before I started club crawling, it was Gene Krupa. When I started, I tried to play like Gene Krupa. Then I discovered Blue Note Records and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers - it opened up another style to me. Max Roach was important too. I studied some lessons he wrote in Down Beat magazine about how to play high-hats. Most drummers in Lagos never used them, they were just a decoration on the kit, and I'd always thought that was something incomplete."

Allen was playing with the Western Toppers when he met Kuti in 1964. "Fela had been presenting a jazz records programme on NBC (Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation) on Friday nights. He decided he wanted to form his own jazz band and play the music himself in the clubs. He'd tried out several drummers, but none of them were what he was looking for. He began to think there was no-one suitable in Africa. Then someone recommended me to him. I auditioned - and he asked me if I'd learnt to play in the USA! I had the style he wanted. We played strictly jazz together for about a year, as the Fela Ransome Kuti Jazz Quartet, before we started Koola Lobitos."

"Fela said I sounded like four drummers," says Allen. "I was the only one who originated the music I played." Fela used to write out the parts for all the other musicians. If Allen sounded like four drummers, it could have been because, in his mature Afrika 70 style, he was drawing on four different styles - highlife, soul/funk, jazz and traditional African drumming. A unique and mighty sound. (In 1970 when James Brown played in Nigeria, his arranger made careful study of Fela's band and Allen's drumming in particular, as did Ginger Baker, another disciple).

Allen stayed with Kuti for close on 15 years, from 1964-1979/80 (it wasn't an overnight parting of the ways). He played on all Afrika 70's albums up until 'V.I.P. - Vagabonds In Power' (after which the band briefly dissolved, before Kuti formed Egypt 80). These include the classic mid-decade stream of discs documenting the post-colonial iniquities of Nigerian society and Kuti's (and Afrika 70's) increasingly bloody conflicts with the authorities - among them 'Alagbon Close', 'Everything Scatter', 'Expensive Shit', 'Yellow Fever', 'Zombie', 'Kalakuta Show', 'Before I Jump Like Monkey Give Me Banana', 'Sorrow Tears And Blood' and 'Fear Not For Man'. The band enjoyed massive popularity in Nigeria and elsewhere in West Africa, but (at home) were subject to constant harassment, and at times brutal physical attacks, from the army and the police.

In 1975, Allen recorded his debut album, 'Jealousy', the first of three made with Afrika 70 and produced by Kuti. 'Progress' followed in 1976, 'No Accommodation For Lagos' in 1978. But by 1978 he was ready for a change of scene, and a year later he parted company with Kuti. The touring entourage had grown to outlandish proportions and there was talk of him not getting due respect or recompense for the contribution he had made to the creation of Afrobeat and the success of Afrika 70. "It's not a big story," says Allen today. "I was tired, I'd just had enough." His final studio collaboration with Kuti was on an album made with American vibraphonist Roy Ayers, 'Africa Centre Of The World' (released in 1981). In 1979 he formed his own band, Tony Allen and the Afro Messengers, and recorded his first album away from Kuti, 'No Discrimination'.

"Lagos was too small for me and Fela. It was a small place, and I wanted room to take off without causing competition," says Allen. "I eventually chose Paris partly because the British immigration people were giving me difficulties, but also because African music was more happening then in Paris than in London, and my record company (Barclay) was in France. It was the only place I felt I could exercise my knowledge and make a living." Soon after arriving in Paris, he recorded an album with producer Martin Meissonnier, but, amid talk of unsatisfactory mixes, it remains unreleased.

Throughout the 1990s Allen was a sought after session drummer and he collaborated with a range of artists including Randy Weston, Groove Armada, Air, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Manu Dibango and Grace Jones. During the years since Fela's death in 1997 Allen has become recognised as Afrobeat's torch bearer and he is held in reverence by musicians and fans alike. Recently the style has seen an upsurge of interest outside of Nigeria with dedicated clubs opening up in Europe and the USA and groups such as Antibalas and Masters At Work bringing the music to a new public. Allen's albums have become more frequent. 'Black Voices' was released in 1999, followed by 'Home Cooking', 'Tony Allen Live', 'Lagos No Shaking' and now, in 2009, the definitively tough and rocking 'Secret Agent'.

"Music is my mission," says Allen. "I never get satisfied and I'm still learning from others. The musical world is very spiritual, and I don't think there's an end to it. As musicians, it's our mission to keep going."

For the better part of 2 decades, NAJITE & OLOKUN PROPHECY ["N.O.P."] has kept authentic afrobeat and African jazz alive from its home base in Los Angeles.

Led by Nigerian master percussionist Najite Agindotan, this roaring ensemble embraces the restless genius of Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the harmonic innovation of Horace Tapscott and the rhythmic soul of the African Diaspora.

Many of Southern California's best instrumentalists have lent their talent to N.O.P. over the years--Phil Ranelin, Nate Morgan, Bobby Bryant, Jerri Jheto--and the current band represents a cross-generational accumulation of their spirit and wisdom.

From saxophonist Jim Thompson (currently with Bobby Womack's band) to bass player Brafo Agindotan (Najite's eminently talented son) to Kpakpo Addo (who cut his chops with the legendary Uhuru Band of Ghana), the members of N.O.P. share a belief in music's ability to unify all people.

The music, N.O.P.'s tool of communication, is at once mythological and urgently realistic. "Africa Before Invasion," an album title track, looks to the "Kings and Queens" of the past, when "We were self-sufficient/We didn't have to steal from each other."

The Age of Goodness is upon us and Najite & Olokun Prophecy invites us to join them in welcoming a new day.

There are few nightclub DJs that have accomplished as much on a global scale as Rich Medina. From his humble beginnings as a young b-boy-turned-DJ in Lakewood, NJ, to his current status manning the decks as one of the most popular DJs in Philadelphia NYC, Rich Medina has consistently taken multi-ethnic crowds on a sonic journey through hip-hop, house, Afrobeat, funk and soul, unearthing one musical gem after another, for almost 20 years.

Rich Medina cemented his name in the DJ world with his infamous 90’s partnership with Cosmo Baker at The Remedy in Philadelphia. In 1998, his Fun party with DJ Language was part of turning the Lower East Side of Manhattan into the new hot spot for club life. Then came the mother lode, Lil’ Ricky’s Rib Shack, a weekly dance function that started out as a 20-person party at APT in 2001, and evolved into an irreplaceable mid-week NYC institution for over 8 years. There, he connected with fan and hip-hop legend Q-Tip in 2005, eventually combining forces to create the Friday night weekly called Open at the Andrew W.K.-owned Santos Party House in 2007, and was soon considered the hottest Friday night party in NYC for the next 2 years.

Rich introduced a new generation of people to Afrobeat music in 2001, with Jump N’ Funk, the first and most consistent US dance party dedicated to the late African musical icon, Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Rich and the Jump N’ Funk brand recently traveled to San Francisco, LA, and Atlanta headlining Knitting Factory Records’ Felabrations!, a nationwide series of events promoting the re-release of The Fela Kuti EMI Catalog.

In addition to his own events, Rich has performed in front of crowds of thousands, DJing shows with artists like Lauryn Hill, De La Soul, Erykah Badu, Seun Kuti, Tony Allen, Nathan Haines, Roy Ayers, Gil Scott-Heron, The Roots, Jill Scott, Antibalas, Zap Mama, and Femi Kuti, among many others. From NYC to LA to London to Tokyo, and everywhere in between, music lovers know not to miss a club night when Rich Medina is manning the decks.

Fronted by Geoffrey Omadhebo (Sonny Okosuns, One World), this 15-piece afrobeat orchestra brings it back, straight to 1970’s West Africa. LAGOS ROOTS presents a version of unfiltered, deeply-grooved Nigerian/ WestCoast Afrobeat that follows a direct path to the beginnings of the genre. The band's performances feature a healthy blend of Fela Kuti & Africa 70 classic repertoire with Omadhebo's own politically charged compositions, and in classical afrobeat fashion, the music speaks for itself, offering audiences a sharp reminder of the ability of live music to capture a political and historical message and spin it back to the public in a contemporary and provocatively musical way.

Representing an important step in the evolution of the style of Nigerian afrobeat once imagined by Fela Kuti & Africa 70, the LAGOS ROOTS AFROBEAT ENSEMBLE brings an extraordinary vision to the stage, complete with horns blasting melodies and backgrounds, driving bass lines and characteristic guitar interplay, authentic vintage keyboards, and a full drum and percussion section that is always grooving. Prepare to dial in on the dance floor and sweat to the beat of the Kalakuta Republic, live with LAGOS ROOTS!

Afrolicious has established itself as both one of the most legendary weekly parties in San Francisco, and of the top live/electronic bands on the scene. Started as a weekly dance party featuring DJ's and brothers Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz alongside percussionists, MC's and horn players, and an amazing crowd from day one. Over the years it has evolved as founding DJ/Producer Pleausremaker (Joe McGuire) alongside brother Señor Oz (Oz McGuire) hooked up with some of the most exciting personalities in the Bay Area music scene and started writing original music under the alias Afrolicious. Around 2010 the live Pleasuremaker band started including some of this new 'Afrolicious' material and added more of the percussionists and vocalists from the weekly party to form what is now the Afrolicious band. Between their weekly party and sound system shows that involve the brothers DJing alongside live percussion, they also have a 8-12 piece live band that emphasizes the organic elements, instrumentation, and energy of a live ensemble combined with club heavy beats and textures the weekly party has come to be known for.